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Complementary styles and contrasting backstories could help put an end to post-Strauss blues

Vithushan Ehantharajah01-Dec-2022There’s BC, AD, and if you’re an England opening batter, AS.Since Andrew Strauss retired at the end of the 2012 English summer, 12 full-time openers tried to fill the void opposite Alastair Cook. A further six were then used to mitigate the loss of Cook, too, bringing us to 18 souls with the unenviable task of replacing two who stepped away from the game with their legacies and legends cast in stone.So – have the 18 been rubbish? Well, no. They were far from chancers. Opening the batting is hard, particularly in England, where the guys at the top have averaged 30.78 AS – lower than everywhere bar West Indies (minimum two Tests). It’s hard. Really hard. As Test coach Brendon McCullum joked during the summer: “The last two guys who nailed it at the top of the order are both called ‘Sir’ in this country.”Still, though – 18 openers, in 10 years ? 18, England? That’s insane, and evidently unworkable. The longevity and stickability of many of them meant they would eventually come again on weight of County Championship runs. The same names, vaguely the same results, broadly the same criticisms and very often the same demoralising experiences – whether dropped unceremoniously, dumped from the team WhatsApp group, hearing second-hand of team-mates lamenting their output or, as has happened in the past, shlepping to retrieve their kit from the dressing room of the venue of their final cap while the rest of the squads’ bags were transported to the next ground.Related

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But they were failing in the same system, under the same expectations of those spoiled by their knighted predecessors and with the same guidance of “go and do some opening or we’ll find someone else who will”. So when Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett combined for 232 on day one in Rawalpindi, slotting in at No. 8 in England’s all-time list of highest opening stands against any opponent, a century each by their names, and setting the perfect platform for England to get to stumps on 506 for 4, it was hard not to reflect how this new regime might have changed the English opener experience for the better.It is most obvious in the case of Crawley. Because in many ways, his 122 won’t change the conversation around him. Backed throughout the summer by McCullum, his captain Ben Stokes and Rob Key, a confidant of Crawley long before he became director of England men’s cricket, he became something of a lightning rod for accusations of nepotism. A summer average of 23 from 13 innings was helped by an unbeaten 69 in the final Test of the season against South Africa. It was 17.25 prior to those runs and that red ink.The outward talk was of a high ceiling: that when Crawley gets it right he can be one of the more destructive openers on the circuit. And yes, it’s hard to discern which was flattest: the pitch at the Pindi stadium, Pakistan’s bowling attack or their fielding. But from striking 14 off the first over – the most England have taken from the opening over of a Test – to being unbeaten on 91 at lunch, then getting to three figures for the third time, from just 86 balls, there was an element of vindication here. Not just of Crawley but the work put into him behind the scenes.Stokes and McCullum have done well to wean the 24-year-old off technique and more on feel, especially given he is an insatiable netter. Positive reinforcement has been consistent but not laid on too thick to devalue their words. Both spent large parts of the summer creating comfortable spaces for Crawley. Such as when Stokes and McCullum manufactured a three-ball group so they could accompany him for a round of golf. Once that was complete, they sat around with a few beers and Crawley opened up about his worries, leaving them contained in that time, at that clubhouse.Most runs in opening session of a Test match•ESPNcricinfo LtdTheir treatment of Crawley has polarised, especially among batters who opened before and those who think their time should have come. The idea the England squad is a closed shop is building in the domestic scene, but much of that seems rooted in the fact Crawley’s treatment is a luxury never seen before. It is, ultimately, a good thing.”I feel like it was just we weren’t playing great games of cricket,” Crawley said of the time before McCullum, in which he also struggled with just two centuries in 21 caps. “We weren’t getting the most out of our talents playing the way we were and playing it safe and Baz always backed us to play positively.”It was not easy opening the batting in the summer. I thought I played okay at times and played some decent knocks but I did not get the decent score.”Another change of tack from the management has been to focus more on the “partnership” side of opening.Ahead of this tour, the decision was made to drop Alex Lees. A summer’s worth of play had seen him average 25.15, higher than Crawley. At times they dovetailed well, with two century and two half-century stands between them in 19 innings. Their collective 536 was the second-best combination of openers since Strauss’ retirement that did not feature Cook. Coincidentally, the pair in top spot – Rory Burns and Dom Sibley – are two who shared unflattering traits with Lees.It was felt Lees, like Burns and Sibley, had trouble turning over the strike, and as such seemed to put undue pressure on the batter at the other end. Harsh, no doubt, especially given Burns and Sibley were the only openers not named “Cook”, to have played since the end of the 2012 summer and scored 1000 or more before Crawley joined them with this knock. And while that analysis reads a bit like making Crawley feel a little more comfortable, in Duckett there is an element of symbiosis.

“I’m pretty small and ‘Creepy’ is pretty tall so I think where they bowl is very different to both of us. The areas we hit are very different as well”Ben Duckett

They hit the similar lines and lengths to different areas: Crawley favouring drives on the up and short-arm pulls, while Duckett focuses square, particularly against the Pakistan seamers when he would regularly square drive wide deliveries behind point. The left-right combination is one thing, but if would mean nothing if they weren’t getting the other on strike, with regular tucks to favoured areas – Crawley into the covers, Duckett around the corners.By lunch – 174 for 0, the most by England in the opening session of a Test – the hosts’ attack was shot of confidence, with both notching half-centuries at a run-a-ball or better. Another first for English openers, by the way. It took until the 39th over for Pakistan to register their first maiden of the innings. By then, both Duckett and Crawley had been back in the dressing room for 15 minutes.”I’m pretty small and ‘Creepy’ is pretty tall so I think where they bowl is very different to both of us,” said Duckett on how he and Crawley complement each other. “The areas we hit are very different as well. Bowlers have to come round the wicket to me and change the line. It is pretty fresh but it is a good start and we are really happy.”At a time when the general ethos around the Test side is riddled with white ball-isms, from the selfless play preached to the presence of Liam Livingstone in this XI, Duckett might be the first rough diamond to need little polishing.Under previous regimes, notably on a chastening 2016-17 winter in Bangladesh and India for Duckett, his manner was derided. The aerial options and the regulation- and reverse-sweeps saw him unfairly regarded as a player who would eventually be found out. The attacking options he would resort to when under pressure chastised as the futile slapping of the waves by a drowning man.Thankfully, those barbs, a broken hand and years of losing his authentic grip did not rob him of his natural instincts. There was plenty of crossover between 1012 runs at 72.28 in the Championship for Nottinghamshire and 223 at a strike rate of 159.58 in the seven-match T20I series in Pakistan earlier this year.The latter proved useful for his maiden hundred, from 105 deliveries: “I think especially facing Naseem [Shah] and Haris [Rauf] and performing against them in the T20 series it gave me confidence coming into this series, albeit in a different format, because I knew what the pitches were going to be like.” It is a milestone that could be the start of a fruitful emergence as an all-format player at the highest level.Fastest Test hundreds for England•ESPNcricinfo LtdJust to reinforce the bond with Crawley, he convinced his taller partner to review a dismissal that otherwise would have cost him three figures. On 99, Crawley was subject to an lbw appeal off Naseem that was given out on the field.”I thought I was out,” revealed Crawley in his press conference while sat next to Duckett. “But ‘Ducky’ knew it was missing and has a good eye. I felt I had missed an opportunity so it was an unbelievable feeling and made the hundred more special.”Duckett interjected: “It looked like it was missing. I think if it was hitting middle halfway up I would have told him to review it anyway.”While the pair were going back and forth fielding questions on their work, two other centurions, Ollie Pope and Harry Brook, were on the outfield singing both their praises.”It started from the get-go, really,” mused Pope when asked to cast an eye over 75 overs of destruction. “Fourteen off the first over?” Yep, 14. “It just put them under pressure straight away. It looked like there wasn’t really anywhere they could bowl to those two the way they were going. It was the perfect way for those boys to set us up and start the series in that fashion.”Having set such high standards, the only way is down for England’s newest dynamic opening pair. What is for certain is their stand of 233 will now be regarded as a marker to beat rather than a limit. We are just one Test into the winter, and in conditions where opening batters tend to do well. But already Crawley and Duckett have the feel of a reliable partnership to facilitate more of the chaos England inflicted on Pakistan onto the rest of the world.

A summer that began with much gloom and doom has ended with South Africa on the brink of automatic World Cup qualification

Firdose Moonda02-Apr-2023It ended so much better than it began.On the heels of an embarrassing T20 World Cup exit and a chastening Test tour of Australia, without a national men’s head coach, South Africa tiptoed into the home summer wondering how much worse things could get. Now, as the sunshine starts to become diluted with autumn’s first air, and with three months of cricket that has been heart-stopping and heartwarming in equal measure, South Africans are struggling to remember a summer this good.A brass band played the 10,000 strong pink-clad Wanderers supporters home after South Africa did their bit to make automatic qualification for this year’s 50-over World Cup a reality. The rest is in Bangladesh’s hands. As long as they win a game in Ireland in May, South Africa will be on their way to India. But no one was thinking that far this evening.As the sun set in Johannesburg, it was about celebrating the first feel-good summer since 2017-18, when South Africa beat India and Australia in home Tests series, and forgetting about the seasons that have gone by since. The defeat to Sri Lanka in 2018-19. The administrative implosion of 2019-20, the effects of which were felt into this year. The pandemic, and the keeping apart of people who, at their core, are designed to congregate. Now, these are more of South Africa’s people than ever before.Have a glance at the crowds that packed out the SA20, showed up to support the women at the T20 World Cup and attended the series against West Indies and Netherlands and you’d have to agree that it’s the most diverse going group around. And then you have to feel it. South Africa is only place where Afrikaans pop-tracks and kwaito beats both get fans on their feet, it’s a place where a mix of races, genders and ages combine in what can very seldom be described accurately as unity, but this was one of those times and the team knows it.”We’ve spoken about how we’re in a privileged position to inspire our country and unite our country through sport. To see that happening on the banks has been awesome from someone who’s been out of the game in South Africa for seven years,” Rob Walter, South Africa’s white-ball coach who spent seven years coaching in New Zealand’s domestic system, said. “To see the difference in the people who are watching the game has been awesome as well.”Aiden Markram raises his fifty•AFP/Getty ImagesIn Walter’s time away, South African cricket has been through some uncomfortable things, most especially a raw reckoning with race. At the centre of the storm has been Temba Bavuma, the country’s first black African Test batter who was elevated to white-ball captain and struggled in T20Is. Bavuma suffered his worst scrutiny when he was snubbed at the SA20 auction in the lead up and at the World Cup, and under Walter, he has been relieved of that format. In return, he has scored three centuries in three months, two in ODI cricket, and has symbolised South Africa’s revival. “He’s a wonderful human being. He’s a great advocate for our country, So it’s wonderful just to be part of sharing a change room with him. And the fact that he can play the cricket that he’s played, which has been exceptional, is just a sort of cherry on top for a guy who is not given enough credit after what he has gone through,” Walter said.But Bavuma is not the only one. Aiden Markram started 2023 after he was dropped from the Test team, but picked to captain Sunrisers Eastern Cape. He then returned to score a century at SuperSport Park and was named T20I captain. In him, South Africans can see the aggressive, smart style of cricket they are trying to play. “We are on this new journey that everyone speaks about and that brand of cricket everyone wants to play is starting to take some shape,” Markam said. “It’s exciting to be a part of and exciting to watch.”And then there is Sisanda Magala. A player who could not make the squad for fitness reasons is now an integral part of the white-ball sides, has an IPL deal and took a first international five-for to win a series. The Wanderers is where he plays his domestic cricket and the crowd got behind him in a big way as he bowled at the death. Cries of ‘Sisanda, Sisanda,” reverberated around the Bullring and when he took the fifth wicket, the joy in the ground was palpable. Every player celebrated with him, even those in the dugout, where Wayne Parnell did his Cristiano Ronaldo celebration from his seat. Markram, who is Magala’s captain in the SA20, acknowledged that Magala’s success is shared by everyone.”With Sisi, if he’s got backing then he’s going to break his back for you,” Markram said. “Through a few performances, a player feels that now they belong at this level. And they can compete and win games at this level. It’s great for him to have these achievements that he’s getting. The guys love him. He has great value in the changeroom and when he does well, everyone is over the moon.”Sisanda Magala enjoyed success in the ODI series against England•Getty ImagesWhat the SA20 did for Markram and Magala and later even for Bavuma, who got a deal, is what it did for South African cricket in general: it showed it was still alive. When Walter was asked to track the revival, he traced it back to that tournament. “We can’t underestimate the impact of the SA20 on cricket in South Africa. There was some momentum coming out of that and we were able to jump on that,” he said. “We’ve played some nice cricket but by no means our best cricket and that’s the exciting part.”With so much promise, someone like Bavuma said it’s a “pity the summer has to end now” but it’s been far better than anyone expected. Ordinarily, series wins against West Indies and Netherlands – neither of them blockbuster opponents – would not be celebrated with such gusto. But this time it’s been about South Africa. They’ve played entertaining, engaging cricket to sign off a champagne summer with more fizz than anyone could have asked for.

Their fast-bowling or math tests, what would you rather face before you’ve even rubbed the sleep from your eyes?

Osman Samiuddin09-Jun-2023Good morning.Here is a postcard from hell.Hell is morning. Nothing good ever came from mornings. Bodies, slow, minds slower. Probably children somewhere, not being slow or mindful, the very accessories of hell.The day before this Test began Rohit Sharma arrived at a press conference at The Oval and, no lie, it took him a minute to begin to even compose a response to the first question. It was 9:15am. I’m pretty sure as the question began, Rohit was still in REM sleep. If we can ever know anything for certain about Rohit Sharma without knowing anything about him, it is that he is not a morning person. And no man should be attending to formal duties at this hour, let alone having to face questions from journalists.Related

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This Test has been starting earlier than usual for England. At 11am, we’re on the border between morning and afternoon, waiting to cross into noon. But at 10:30am, we’re rubbing the sleep from our eyes.But you know who else, apart from children, likes mornings? Fast bowlers.If children are the accessories to hell fast bowlers are the furniture. They love mornings. The rest of us are trying to string a two-word sentence together and failing, trying not to be like when the audio and video of your screen is all out of sync; meanwhile these heroes are catwalking in from 30 yards, bodies loose and lean, joints and limbs and muscles in biological harmony, hurling stuff at you at 90mph.First thing in the morning, Scott Boland. I mean. That’s like waking up straight into a math exam.Whatever else hell might be, ChatGPT will be there. And what is Scott Boland if not the ChatGPT response to the question of who is the perfect fast-medium bowler? Boland does fast-medium bowling exactly as it has been prescribed, except he does it so exactly that it can’t be real. It must be a likeness of real, that’s how good it is.Who bowls the ball he bowled second up this morning? KS Bharat is waking up, we’re all waking up really, and here’s Boland asking him to disprove the Riemann Hypothesis.”You what? Wait, what’s that sound? Is that my stumps?”It’s a ball you might not be able to keep out at 2pm, 5pm, 9pm or any pm. At 10:32am? No chance in hell.Next ball he raps Shardul Thakur on the gloves. This is a sign. Pain is incoming. Having brought balls back thus far, the last one holds its line and Thakur edges it, just beyond the slips. This is also a sign because fortune is also incoming. If fast-medium bowling as we’ve known it (Stuart Clark, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Abbas) is hell, then in the high 80s for speeds, Boland’s is Hell+.How can anyone who looks that good be so bad for you?•Getty ImagesThe greatest trick hell ever pulled is, of course, Pat Cummins, who’s up next. How can anyone who looks that good be so bad for you? How can anyone look that good this early in the morning? How can anyone be so considered and considerate, so full of empathy, and yet also be trying to crack your body open at least 120 times a day?First ball he’s in. Can’t drive it. Can’t not play at it. Can’t play it even when you can’t not play at it. It’s seaming away from Ajinkya Rahane. What coffee do they serve in hell? Cummins keeps pulling his length fractionally backwards or forwards of good length, allowing the variation in bounce in the surface to come in play for the rest of the over. Then, at the end, having fed Thakur all this heat, he throws him the illusion of a cold wet towel. A full ball. Outside off. Drive it. Seek relief. Thakur can’t see it from all the sweat in his eyes and misses.Boland got hit for his first six in Tests on Thursday. On Friday, he bowls his first ever bad delivery in Tests, four wides way down legside. India celebrate the runs. Humanity celebrates a glitch in the ChatGPT algorithm: there’s hope for all of us. Hold your horses though. Other than that ball, Boland’s over seams in, then holds, seams in, then holds again, then seams in. Thakur edges, but it scoots along the field past slips for four.Pat Cummins hit Shardul Thakur in the right forearm two balls in a row•AFP/Getty ImagesThe next over from Cummins has so many medical personnel on the field, it’s like a scene from Grey’s Anatomy which, of course, is the same thing as a scene from hell. Thakur is struck twice in two balls, on the exact same spot on his forearm, off two exact same deliveries. Not short but quick, bouncing but also seaming away. Hell is a life lived over. At the non-striker’s end, another truth bomb has struck Rahane. Hell is other people.Hell is also not over. Thakur pops a pill, puts on an extra arm guard (although at this precise moment, Tony Stark’s latest armour isn’t going to help him any) and gets hit on the glove, high up on the bat handle next ball. The last ball of the over is a conventional legbreak. At nearly 90mph.Rahane plays out an over from Boland which feels like, I dunno, maybe having a cigarette in hell. He takes six runs by opening the face of his bat but is beaten in between by one that jags away from very close to off. Smoking’s not good for your health. But it’s less bad for your health than hell.Thakur is dropped by Cameron Green at gully off Cummins. It is a dolly. He’s hit high on the pads the next ball and then in the midriff the ball after. It’s a no-ball too, so an extra ball to face. One nips in, almost rolls on to the stumps off Thakur’s bottom edge. At this point, the drop seems cruel and unfair on Thakur. ESPNcricinfo records his control percentage as 40%. It seems a lot on the high side.Boland is still going because AI never sleeps. Rahane defends solidly, then plays a nice off-drive and it might be that he’s getting the hang of this. Duly he drives, duly the ball shapes away and duly the edge falls just short of gully.It’s past 11 now, so creeping into non-morning territory. It might be that someone’s turned the AC on in hell, or at least turned the heat down. Rahane first gets lucky, jabbing at and edging a wideish length ball from Cummins for four. Rahane then gets classy, hooking the next ball, high and long for six and nearly, very nearly out of hell.There’s still time for Boland to have a whole over of fun with Thakur. Back of length, fuller, in, out, shake it all about. It leaves Thakur requiring more treatment, this time on his thumb. He may need to talk to someone about what his mind and soul have just been put through.But he’s gotten through it. It’s 11:22am. It’s not even been a full hour but my watch is telling me it’s been eternity. Morning has ended and as Mitchell Starc comes on, so too has hell.

India are in transition but the leader of their attack in the West Indies stepped up big time

Alagappan Muthu24-Jul-20231:01

Dasgupta: Siraj led the pace attack under pressure

“In the morning, we chatted about it, that the wicket was tough to bowl on. It’s slow and nothing is happening, like seam movement or spin. At the end, there was some turn but overall it was very easy for batting.”Their batting was also very defensive. So there were no chances for us because they didn’t play any attacking shots. To sum up our effort, it was great from our bowlers and each one of them did what was expected of them.”A little over 12 hours after India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said all of that, he was watching his boys cut through the West Indies line-up.The missing link between India needing 67 overs to pick up four first-innings wickets on Saturday but only 7.4 to pick up five on Sunday was the new ball. It swung.This was a significant window of opportunity, which came with the catch that it was likely to be a small one. These are the moments that a good team seizes.India have been at this crossroads many times in overseas Test matches. Two of the more high-profile ones turned on the back of not so much the mistakes themselves but the timing of them. Their collapse on the sixth day of the first World Test Championship final and their letting Travis Head off the hook by never inviting him to hook when he was new to the crease in the most recent World Test Championship final.That hurt will never go away. Like 8-0 in 2011-12 never went away. In fact, a straight line can be traced from there to India having much improved fast bowling stocks. Perhaps in a similar way, the limitations that cost them those two ICC titles will now help them build once again.2:38

Siraj: Taking a five-for on a flat wicket isn’t easy

There were some good signs in Port-of-Spain, particularly from Mohammed Siraj. Did you know that he has been among the toughest quick bowlers to face in the last year? He has induced a false shot 211 times in 13 innings. And that’s while playing on the raging turners of Mirpur and Nagpur. The featherbed at Ahmedabad. And of course, this one here at the Queen’s Park Oval. The other quicks above him – there are 11 – the likes of Stuart Broad and Mitchell Starc and Matt Henry and Kagiso Radaba tend to play at venues much more suitable to their craft.Only a few minutes after Siraj walked back to the pavilion having bowled 3.4 overs for 13 runs and four wickets on the fourth morning, West Indies leaked 100 runs in 12.2 overs. This guy is that good and he has worked really hard for it. He didn’t rest on having a top-notch outswinger to the right-hand batters. He went out and found a way to bring the ball back into them. He knew that in order to be great, he had to test both edges of the bat. He had to create that uncertainty. In some of symmetry’s best work, two of his wickets came from balls leaving the right-hand batters and the other two from balls snarling back into them. Jason Holder’s downfall had the added subtlety of a bowler going wide of the crease to trick the batter into playing the angle, and therefore playing inside the line to be nicked off.Siraj is dangerously close to being a complete fast bowler. And he has only been playing Test cricket for two-and-a-half years.Mukesh Kumar looks a quick study as well. The control he offered on day three was crucial. The wickets he took were also significant. He had Alick Athanaze lbw with conventional swing. He used reverse seam – the ball moving off the pitch in the direction of the shine – to subdue Kirk McKenzie. And he hounded Kraigg Brathwaite on the front foot because he knew that’s the one place on a cricket field he doesn’t feel comfortable. On a quicker pitch, he might have had him lbw too.India have dominated this tour but that was expected when they were up against a team ranked eighth and a batting line-up that has routinely underperformed. Even so, the fact that they made what needed to happen happen – a collapse so that they can get in to bat early and set the pace in order to leave themselves enough time to bowl West Indies out again – will please the team management. They know they are in the middle of a transition but it is entirely possible that they’re relishing the hell out of it. Mhambrey’s smile as he greeted Siraj, who returned to the dressing room with the ball held aloft, was a dead giveaway.

ESPNcricinfo runs through the new-look West Indies squad, with some insights from Ian Bishop

Andrew McGlashan09-Jan-2024

Zachary McCaskie (27, top-order batter)

First-class record: Matches 11 | Runs 641 | Average 30.52 | Hundreds 0Despite being 27, McCaskie only made his first-class debut less than a year ago and has yet to score a century (although has one in List A cricket). Made 92 and 55 not out in his fourth match against Trinidad and Tobago, batting for over six hours in the game. “I was probably thinking about my scores a little much in the games prior,” he told Cricket West Indies’ YouTube channel at the time. “So I tried to have a free mind and it ended up paying off. It was a great feeling to be able to win a game for Barbados and be there at the end. I wanted to put up my hand and say I’m leaving it for no one else”He followed that with 93 in the Headley-Weekes Tri series, where he opened alongside Tagenarine Chanderpaul, and was selected for the A tours of Bangladesh and South Africa. On the latter he made two half-centuries in the second four-day game in East London.

Tevin Imlach (27, wicketkeeper)

First class record: Matches 17 | Runs 612 | Average 24.48 | Hundreds 1Imlach was part of the West Indies Under-19 side that won the 2016 World Cup and will likely be the reserve keeper for this tour. In the final of that tournament he pulled off a unusual stumping to remove Rishabh Pant who had taken guard outside of his crease to Alzarri Joseph, left the ball alone and Imlach underarmed at the stumps. “Very clever,” Bishop recalled.His limited first-class record is in part because Guyana had a number of senior keepers in front of him after the Under-19 World Cup. His maiden first-class century came last year against Jamaica when he made 136 not out. Was the vice-captain on the recent A tour of South Africa. “He confesses not to have any extraordinary stories in terms of his development but he’s a nice touch batsman,” Bishop said.

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Justin Greaves (29, seam-bowling allrounder)

First class record: Matches 37 | Runs 1268 | Average 26.97 | Hundreds 1 | Wickets 76 | Average 22.76 | Five-wickets 4An allrounder who had a good domestic one-day tournament last year but has just one first-class century dating back to 2017. Has played international cricket with three ODIs against Ireland in 2022 where he was a batter-only due to back problems. In last year’s four-day Championship he took 16 wickets at 16.06 for Windward Islands having previously played for Barbados.”He’s a little bit of a surprise [selection] actually,” Bishop said. “He’s a nice little utility player. He can open the batting as he does in one-day cricket, bat in the middle, and is a nice touch player. When he played for West Indies Under-19s it was as an allrounder, [and he] sometimes opened the bowling for Barbados with his fast-medium or medium-fast bowling but his batting has taken over in the last two or three seasons.”

Kavem Hodge (30, batting allrounder, left-arm spinner)

First-class record: Matches 55 | Runs 2762 | Average 29.07 | Hundreds 4 | Wickets 55 | Average 37.80 | Five-wickets 1Like Greaves, was part of the 2012 Under-19 cohort. The left-arm spinner and middle-order batter played three ODIs against UAE last year. Has four first-class centuries, the most recent of which was his career-best 137 last March where he batted five-and-a-half hours and formed a stand of 246 with Alick Athanzne. Batted at No. 4 on the recent A tour of South Africa. Bowling-wise, his career-best 6 for 68 dates back to 2019 against Trinidad and Tobago.”He bowls, I’d say, left-arm darts,” Bishop said. “It’s not filled with great variation but he can bat like four or five in the order and he’s been a workmanlike sort of cricketer around the regional circuit since his Under-19 days. He’s not a spectacular looking player, but a very practical player.”Kevin Sinclair commemorates a wicket with gravity-defying acrobatics•AFP/Getty Images

Kevin Sinclair (24, offspinner, allrounder)

First-class record: Matches 21 | Runs 976 | Average 31.48 | Hundreds 0 | Wickets 66 | Average 24.33 | Five-wickets 4Internationally, the most experienced of the seven players uncapped at Test level with 13 white-ball games under his belt. He is perhaps most famous for his somersault celebrations. Has impressive domestic bowling returns across all three formats and could be an all-round option in the middle order depending on the balance of the side. Across two A series in Bangladesh and South Africa he took 25 wickets at 25.80 and averaged 46.12 with the bat. Has previously picked the brain of Bangladesh’s Mehidy Hasan about how to improve his red-ball bowling.”An offspinner who is very tidy and I’m surprised he hasn’t made more headway in competition with someone like a Roston Chase,” Bishop said. “Kevin loves his batting. While we see Kevin as a bowling allrounder he sees himself as a batting allrounder and had a very useful tour of South Africa with the bat. An up-and-coming allrounder…and a very good fielder as well. He’s an evolving bowler and won’t back down from a challenge.”

Akeem Jordan (29, pace bowler)

First-class record: Matches 15 | Wickets 59 | Average 22.08 | Five-wickets 2Jofra Archer slept on Jordan’s floor as he tried to make his way in county cricket. Jordan himself only made his first-class debut in 2022 but has a handy record across 15 matches. He was part of the Test squad that toured South Africa early last year and played a couple of ODIs against UAE. Took 5 for 45 against Bangladesh A in Sylhet then helped them to victory with 22 not out.”He is very skillful, can bowl the new ball, and looks to put the ball in the right areas. He is also a sharp fielder and good catcher close to the wicket,” Desmond Haynes, West Indies’ lead selector, said when he was included for South Africa.”Medium-fast who swings the ball. He can bring it in a little bit and can seam it,” Bishop said. “Those are his major strengths. One of those all-round talents whose bowling with the new ball will be [about] swing and perhaps be more of a probing [role] rather than someone who will scare you [with pace].”Shamar Joseph’s raw talent has got people excited•Getty Images

Shamar Joseph (24, pace bowler)

First-class record: Matches 5 | Wickets 21 | Average 21.80 | Five-wickets 2The 24-year-old has just five first-class matches under his belt but is viewed as a very exciting prospect. Not long ago he was working as a security guard to help look after his young family. Made his first-class debut early last year and claimed 12 wickets in two matches on the A tour of South Africa. Was also part of the Guyana Amazon Warriors squad which won the CPL.”I’ve been putting in a lot of work lately, training hard, so I’m extremely happy,” he told after his call-up. “I learned a lot [in South Africa]. We had one of the great fast bowlers, Shaun Tait, with us so he taught us a lot. I don’t want to get carried away by the fast wickets [in Australia], just stick to the basics.”Bishop said: “Through sheer hard work he moved to Georgetown. When you see him there’s not an ounce of fat on him. A very diligent, hardworking, fast-medium bowler and quicker than the others we’ve mentioned. Very skiddy. I first ran into him live last year when West Indies were playing in Guyana and I caught a sight of him in the nets and he has hustle, bustle and really comes at you. There’s a lot of high hopes for him because of his attitude and because of his physical capabilities.”

Lloyd Pope and Cameron Boyce shared seven wickets to stun defending champions Perth Scorchers

Tristan Lavalette21-Jan-20241:22

Gillespie: Strikers motivated by ‘one man team’ jibe

With their season on the line, Adelaide Strikers’ hierarchy faced a selection headache ahead of playing defending champions Perth Scorchers at the pace-friendly Optus Stadium.Strikers had surged into the knockout final since turning around their season after a heavy loss in Perth earlier in the month, where they conceded 211 for 4, left their finals hopes hanging by a threadStrikers languished in last spot on the BBL ladder after their struggling attack leaked more than 200 runs for the third time in five games.Related

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• Lloyd Pope, Cameron Boyce combine to knock Perth Scorchers out

“We got to a point in the season where every game was a final for us,” Strikers coach Jason Gillespie said. “So we had to do something different. We had to be brave enough to make a change in our philosophy and strategy.”Strikers turned to legspinner Lloyd Pope, most known for his starring role at the Under-19 World Cup in 2018, who had only played one match in domestic cricket across three formats over the past two seasons.It proved an inspired gamble with Pope starring with the big wickets of Aaron Hardie and Josh Inglis as a revamped Strikers attack limited Scorchers to 153 for 7 in their eventual nine-wicket thumping at the Adelaide Oval.Pope continued to combine superbly with frontline legpinner Cameron Boyce, who all season has seamlessly replaced injured Afghanistan star Rashid Khan.”They’re two very different types of legspinners,” Gillespie said. “Boyce is a lot slower through the air. He’s got great control of his length and Popey’s a little bit quicker through the air, but he’s got a real turning and bouncing wrong’un.”But the traditionally hard and fast surface at Optus Stadium is particularly tough for spinners, who are usually on a hiding to nothing. Teams don’t often select two frontline spinners there. In the ground’s previous match, Sydney Sixers dropped in-form left-armer Steve O’Keefe for seamer Jackson Bird.Quicks Wes Agar and Brendan Doggett were desperate to be recalled, but Strikers stuck with Pope and also included offspinning allrounder Ben Manenti.”We’ve come here [Perth] over the years trying to fight fire with fire,” Gillespie said. “Let’s take a complete change of tactics and see how we go. We genuinely believed the team we picked from a bowling perspective was a really good match up against the Scorchers”We knew they had a lot of left-handers, so the offspin and the leggies bowling two different paces… we thought that would create a challenge for Scorchers. They like pace on, they are a strong hitting team. Let’s take the air out of the ball and make them make the pace.”Defending a modest 155 for 7, Strikers seemed headed for an exit when debutant Sam Fanning attacked the new ball as Scorchers rattled off 33 runs in the powerplay.

Adelaide Strikers’ winning streak

vs Brisbane Heat: match abandoned
vs Sydney Thunder: won by six wickets
vs Sydney Sixers: lost by one run
vs Melbourne Renegades: lost by four wickets
vs Melbourne Stars: lost by seven wickets
vs Perth Scorchers: lost by 42 runs
vs Perth Scorchers: won by nine wickets
vs Hobart Hurricanes: won by five wickets
vs Hobart Hurricanes: won by 8 wickets
vs Sydney Thunder: won by nine wickets
vs Perth Scorchers: won by 50 runs

But Fanning’s fairytale was soon cut short by seamer Henry Thornton before Pope came into the attack in the sixth over. He dismissed Marcus Harris, a late season signing, on his fourth delivery and then combined with Boyce to bamboozle Scorchers in the type of mesmerising spin bowling rarely seen in Perth.It inevitably came down to their battles with Scorchers’ best batters Hardie and Inglis, who usually treat spinners with complete disdain at Optus Stadium. Hardie’s eyes light up when the ball is tossed up, but he missed a flighted delivery from Pope that dipped and crashed into his stumps.The pressure fell on Inglis, who has a knack for giving himself room against spin and carving over the covers. He again tried his favoured stroke against Boyce only for the ball to skid off the surface and knock over leg stump.Boyce celebrated manically as Scorchers were eventually routed for 105. Eight of their 10 wickets fell to spin with Pope and Boyce combining for seven of them.

We’ve got nothing to lose. We’ll go to the Gold Coast full of beans and full of energy… but, again, [stay] nice and calmStrikers head coach Jason Gillespie

“The feedback from our batters was that it was like a tennis ball bounce on a spongy surface. We thought that would actually work for us with our spinners,” Gillespie said. “We just felt we were in the game and then were a wicket away from cracking it open.”Strikers’ eventual hefty 50-win victory seemed totally implausible when they were reeling at 48 for 4 after being sent in. They had been earlier left shaken when skipper Matthew Short was bowled by a gem of an inswinging yorker from veteran Andrew Tye for 13.It was only Short’s second failure in what has been a record-breaking season for a player closing in on a spot in Australia’s T20 World Cup squad.Strikers’ fightback was led by No. 3 Jake Weatherald, who has been another important late season inclusion. There had been grave fears over their batting-order missing Chris Lynn, Adam Hose and Jamie Overton who had all departed to the UAE’s ILT20.But Weatherald continued his rich vein of form to hit the only half-century of the match and ignite Strikers. “Jake’s had a quiet couple of years. We just had to back his experience,” Gillespie said of Weatherald, who is averaging 183 with a strike-rate of 192.63 in his last three matches.”He’s just coming out with a free mind and I’ve just encouraged him to hit the ball like he’s having a net because he’s one of the best batters in the net you’ll ever see.”Lloyd Pope (left) and Cameron Boyce (right) have helped inspire a change of fortunes for Adelaide Strikers•Getty ImagesHaving ended Scorchers’ stranglehold of the BBL, Strikers pulled off one of their best ever wins in a triumph that was particularly sweet. Gillespie had his team had woken up on game day to the back page of the , the unsurprisingly parochial local newspaper, that sported the headline ‘Scorchers v One Man’.”Incredibly pleased, especially when we read the back page of the paper today and saw that we are a one-man team,” Gillespie said. “That gave the boys a hell of a lot of motivation.”It provided assistant coach Ryan Harris the perfect ammunition for his now customary pre-game rev-up to the players and the rest was history.But Strikers will have to back up quickly as they make the long trip to the Gold Coast to meet Brisbane Heat in the Challenger on Monday. The winner will face Sixers in the final at the SCG on Wednesday.Heat and Strikers have effectively not played this season after their early season match in Adelaide was abandoned without a ball being bowled.A two-paced Gold Coast surface is likely to suit Boyce and Pope as Strikers suddenly find themself inching towards a first BBL title in six years.”A couple of buzzwords for us this year have been: calm and clear… execute. We’ve kept things really simple as much as we can,” Gillespie said. “We’ve got nothing to lose. We’ll go to the Gold Coast full of beans and full of energy… but, again, [stay] nice and calm.”Just go out there and have some fun and see where it takes us.”

Reactions from social media after Punjab Kings chased down 262 against KKR with eight balls to spare

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Apr-2024.

It’s run a ball for the last 2 overs of a T 20 game in a chase of 260 +.

Let that sink in. #IPL2024 #KKRvsPBKS

— Ashwin (@ashwinravi99) April 26, 2024